Hi everyone,

Yesterday was May 8th, which was the day I had said we would stop
discussing my proposal of what to do about Symantec and hand it over to
Kathleen for a decision. This didn't happen for two reasons: I had some
personal things to deal with, and also I think the proposal needs some
modification.

Mozilla runs an open and transparent root program, and listens to the
voice of its community. And over the past few days it's been clear that
our community is not impressed with Symantec's engagement, or lack
thereof, with this process. I personally am also not impressed with the
way that getting information from Symantec feels like pulling teeth;
questions are answered at the last possible minute, and despite there
being major outstanding problems with compliance to Mozilla's root
program requirements (issue Y), no effort is made from their side to
proactively engage and start to resolve these issues. It is clear from
the issues list that there are a number of serious concerns, and these
are not being engaged with. Despite the fact that there appear to be
numerous under-audited and unaudited publicly-trusted sub-CAs out there,
and this fact has been known for weeks now, Symantec has not said
anything about the situation to Mozilla, either publicly or privately.
Would we find this acceptable in any other CA?

I am also not happy with simply waiting for the outcome of private
discussions between Google and Symantec in which Mozilla's interests are
not adequately represented. I am keen to move forward, to demonstrate
that delay is not rewarded, and (despite the fact that our process can
be slow) to make sure that timely action is taken based on the results
of our investigations. This is only fair, given that this is what we
have attempted to do for other CAs which we have investigated. We should
treat everyone the same, as far as we can.

I am therefore proposing the following:

* Editing the proposal to withdraw the "alternative" option, leaving
only the "new PKI" option. I no longer have confidence that the
alternative option represents an appropriate response. As some have
pointed out, the "documentation" requirement is actually something
Symantec should have done years ago as part of our intermediate
disclosure process, and which other CAs have made great efforts to
comply with already. The "new PKI" option represents the best way to
reduce the risk from Symantec's under-managed and sprawling existing PKI.

* Engagement here in m.d.s.p. with the community to refine and flesh out
the "new PKI" proposal, based on the Google outline but examining it and
enhancing it to make sure it is practical, both from an implementation
perspective and to reduce disruption to sites as far as possible.

* Discussions within Mozilla as necessary to make sure the appropriate
parts of the organization are briefed on this process.

* Submission of the proposal document to Kathleen at the earliest
possible moment to propose that we have that plan approved as our
requirements of Symantec. (The timeline here is dependent on other
moving parts, but as noted above, delay is to be avoided.)

We may in parallel ask further questions of Symantec, and expect timely
answers (as this is a baseline requirement for participation in our root
program), but this process will not wait around for those answers.

I will begin work on these tasks tomorrow.

Gerv
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